Likely no death in music history shocked the world as did the murder of John Lennon on the steps of The Dakota apartment building in New York on 8 December 1980. Each year on that anniversary, a memorial procession is held in front of the building led by Yoko Ono that ends across the street at the appropriately named Strawberry Fields memorial in Central Park. The Dakota itself is a rather stately building from the 1880s and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1976.

The hazards of constant touring and travel mean that some of our musical heroes meet their demise on tour – such as Buddy Holly. And then there are those who simply run into misfortune on the way home from a night out, as did T. Rex’s Marc Bolan in 1977 when low tire pressure in the vehicle in which he was a passenger resulted in a crash with a tree in Queen’s Ride, Barnes. Fans quickly turned the site into an impromptu shrine, and tributes continue to arrive to this day.

Others who saw their time on Earth end in the midst of touring include Metallica’s Cliff Burton (who was killed in 1986 when he was thrown through the window of an overturning tour bus on this stretch of rural Swedish roadway), and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, and Cassie Gaines – who all perished when their chartered plane crashed in this forest near the Mississippi-Louisiana border.

Perhaps the most infamous residence in rock history was the flat at 9 Curzon Square, Mayfair, London owned by Harry Nilsson. The cursed house was often lent by Nilsson to other musician friends while he was on tour, two of whom died while staying there: ‘Mama’ Cass Elliot in 1974 (and no, she didn’t choke to death on a ham sandwich) and Who drummer Keith Moon in 1978¹. Further to the north in London we find the Camden Square home of Amy Winehouse where she died in 2011.

Sadly, while we in the midst of compiling this post, another music legend, Whitney Houston, passed away in her suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on 11 February 2012 at the age of 48.

When famous musicians pass on, places like these can become rather busy memorial sites, often seeing thousands of visitors each year making pilgrimages in honour of their fallen heroes. The area surrounding the tomb of Jim Morrison at Paris’ Père Lachaise Cemetery, for example, became a haven for large crowds, vandalism, drunken parties, and even occult rituals over the years; at one point the grave had to be covered in stone in order to prevent attempts at digging up Morrison’s body.

Also in Paris sits this wall outside the longtime home of legendary French singer-songwriter Serge Gainsbourg. In the two-plus decades since Gainsbourg’s death, the wall has been consistently covered in graffiti, including poems, lyrics, and images of Gainsbourg.

There are also impromptu memorial sites that only last for a few days or weeks. Street View just happened to be travelling through Detroit in July 2009 shortly after Michael Jackson died, and captured Hitsville USA² – the former headquarters of Motown Records where the Jackson family got their start in the record business (now a museum) – which was temporarily swathed in an array of tributes and offerings.

Have you found other infamous music haunts such as these on Google Maps? Feel free to share them with us in the comments below.

Locations: California, England, France, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Sweden / Categories: Buildings, Monuments, Street Views, Weirdness

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Unlike the rest of the world, most auto racing in the United States takes place not on road circuits, but on oval speedways contained inside a seated stadium. Almost everyone has heard of legendary oval circuits such as Indianapolis and Daytona, but across the country literally thousands of local speedways dot the landscape.

Take Longhorn Speedway on the outskirts of Austin, Texas. Opened in 1960 as Austin Speed-O-Rama, the quarter-mile track has been dilapidating for over a decade; though not quite long enough to obscure the Budweiser advert on the start-finish line. A few years ago rumours suggested the overgrown facility was purchased by Sandra Bullock and her motorhead ex-husband, but if true, nothing ever came of it.

Lakeside Speedway in Denver, Colorado hosted hundreds of thousands of race fans from 1938 until 1988 – when economic factors and an unfortunate spectator death combined to cause the facility to be shut down. Today, the cracked pavement and ruined grandstands remain, along with a number of cars left on the track.

Middle Georgia Raceway was open for just five years (1966-1971) before it met its demise. Not only was the track home to four top-level NASCAR races during its short life, but it also played host to the 1970 Atlanta International Pop Festival where legends such as Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, and Jethro Tull played to an estimated 500,000 people, which to this day ranks as one of the largest concerts in rock history.

While stock car racing has long been popular in the south, the ‘national pastime’ of the United States is usually considered to be baseball¹. One of the most difficult ballparks to play in was Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field, home to the Pirates from 1909 to 1970. In the old confines, hitting a home run was a very hard thing to accomplish. Today it’d be pretty easy, as only the outside wall (including the distance markers) remains; most of the structure having been damaged in a 1971 fire. The ball diamond that exists today actually lies beyond the old Forbes outfield, which was on the other side of the wall.

Tiger Stadium was the legendary home of the Detroit Tigers from 1912 to 1999. Despite public outcry and nearly a decade of petition from the general public to preserve the old ballpark, the stadium was finally demolished in 2009, leaving just the field of play and the iconic flagpole behind centre field. Street View shows the pile of rubble left behind by the wrecking crews.

In St. Louis, there have been three separate venues named Busch Stadium. The second Busch closed in 2005, with the third Busch built next door in the old car park. The superstructure of Busch II was removed, and the field was redeveloped as a softball field as in Forbes Field; the rest serves as – you guessed it – the new Busch car park.

Not to be confused with St. Louis’ Busch Stadium is Indianapolis’ Bush Stadium. Built in 1931 for baseball, Bush was converted into a dirt track speedway in 1997 before being abandoned completely in 1999. Like the other Busch, we see that Bush is now also apparently a parking lot, though in a much more depressing sense. Bing Maps’ bird’s-eye view has an even less-flattering view of the derelict structure.

We end our abandoned stadium tour with a stadium that never even made it to completion. In 1986, the city of Sacramento wanted a baseball stadium to complement the ARCO Arena (now Power Balance Pavilion), the home of the NBA’s Kings. While the playing field was dug out, only the foundation of the stadium was ever built.

Today, the unfinished ballpark, rimmed by trees, forms an oasis in the middle of the Pavilion car park. Literally – when it rains, it fills with water!

Read part one of our abandoned stadium tour: Abandoned Stadiums of Europe, South America, and Africa.

Locations: California, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Texas / Categories: Abandoned, Stadiums and Sport

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At number ten the small town of Scary, West Virginia. Having the main street called Scary Road wasn’t frightening enough, so they named another street Big Scary Road!

At numbers nine and eight, we can just about make up the popular Halloween activity, by visiting Trickum Road and Treat Mountain Road, both in rural Georgia. Sadly they don’t intersect.

In the Netherlands we have a town named after a popular Halloween costume – Monster – which is number seven on our list. I’m not sure if it’s real graffiti, a real monster, or just an artifact of Google’s blurring efforts, but the town sign appears to have a ghoulish claw attached to the letter M!

Number six continues our monster theme. A touch of green face paint and a fake plastic bolt through the neck brings us to the tiny village of Frankenstein, Missouri.

Wikipedia claims that the town wasn’t actually named after Mary Shelley’s novel or its characters, but for a Gottfried Franken who donated land for the construction of a Church.

At number five we have one of the more popular decorations for Halloween parties – Spiderweb, South Carolina.

At numbers four and three we have a ghostly sound and a startled response – Boo, Sweden and Eek, Alaska.

Many children dress as pointy-hatted, wart-riddled old hags for Halloween, so (bending the rules slightly to include bodies of water as well as towns) at number two we have Witch Lake, Michigan.

We provide this handy graphic to help you understand how it got its name! Note the bonus Halloween content with Bat Lake just to the north-west!

No Halloween celebration would be complete without a gourd-like squash of the genus Cucurbita, carved into a gruesome face and lit from within by a candle. So tied for number one we have a pair of communities called Pumkpintown – one in South Carolina, the other in Tennessee.

Happy Halloween from all of us at Google Sightseeing! If you know of other Halloween-named towns, please post them in the comments.

Locations: Alaska, Georgia, Michigan, Missouri, Netherlands, South Carolina, Sweden, Tennessee, West Virginia / Categories: Street Views, Weirdness

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In an effort to attract families, this park features both a carousel, visible in the north-west corner of the stadium grounds, and a ferris wheel with ball-shaped cars.

Home to the Tigers, there are feline statues and motifs all over the building, including this 4.5m tall figurehead at the entrance to the stadium, flanked by two giant baseball bats. Note that the struts holding up the name sign are also bat-shaped!

The blue tank in centre field is a large fountain which gives elaborate displays between innings and after every Tiger score. Note the vehicles in each corner – the fountain is usually sponsored by one of the car manufacturers for which Detroit is renowned.

Unlike football stadiums and multi-purpose arenas, which tend to be quite generic, baseball stadiums provide architects and teams with much more freedom to add unique features to try to make their buildings attractive to the ticket-buying public.

A construction boom in the last couple of decades saw a trend towards smaller ‘retro’-styled parks topped off with design elements which range from the whimsical to the spectacular. The first of these was Oriole Park in Baltimore.

The stadium was built on former train yards owned by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and is officially called ‘Oriole Park at Camden Yards’. A former B&O building dominates the view from much of the park, and stretches the length of Eutaw Street which is closed on game days, with cheap tickets allowing access to standing areas with a view of the field.

When a home run lands in the street, the spot is marked with a plaque. See if you can also find the two orange seats inside the stadium that mark the locations of famous home runs!

There are two American League stadiums with retractable roofs. In Seattle, the satellite image of Safeco Field¹ shows the 3-section roof open and the infield apparently set up for some kind of corporate function, with tables and chairs and a small stage. When open, the roof is partly cantilevered over the train tracks which run past the stadium. Note that the sponsor’s huge logo is clearly visible whether the roof is open or closed.

Unlike virtually all other domed stadiums, the roof here does not fully enclose the facility to allow heating or cooling, it merely serves to protect it from the frequent rain that occurs in the Pacific Northwest.

Toronto’s variable seasons also make a domed stadium a necessity. With interesting timing, the satellite images caught the Rogers Centre²roof partway through the 20-minute rotational process of opening (or closing), showing the smallest of the segments on the west side of the building.

We also get an unusual perspective on the CN Tower, formerly the world’s tallest building, and one of the earliest sites visited by Google Sightseeing.

In New York, the new Yankee Stadium sits across just to the north of the recently-demolished original 1923 version.

The Street View images in the area allow us to see both stadiums standing side-by-side, and of course you can use Google Earth’s time slider to see how the sites have changed over many years – see prime parkland transformed into sports facility at great expense!

The focus here is on celebrating the game’s traditions, through artwork, monuments and historical items on display. Perhaps these distract game attendees from the exorbitant $2.3billion construction cost and seats which are some of the most expensive in professional sports.

Of particular controversy are those in the ‘Legends Suite’ – several rows behind home plate where seats have ranged in price from $500 to over $2,000! Opening in the midst of an economic crisis, takeup was slow, and the public perception of this zone fenced off from the surrounding fans was quite poor. As a result Yankees games on television often show many of these seats vacant.

Empty seats are also a problem on the other side of the continent where the Oakland Athletics play in a mixed-use stadium that, in 1996, had 10,000 additional seats constructed. This development – nicknamed Mount Davis after the notorious owner of the NFL’s Raiders – is covered during baseball season so that it doesn’t look so bad on television. The huge tarps, with the Athletics’ logo, are visible on Google’s recent 45 degree imagery.

Just to the south-east, in Anaheim, Angel Stadium is also visible in the 45 degree images. It is an older stadium, having opened in 1966. However, since Disney took over the team in 1996 it has been extensively modernised. Many new features have been added, including two large red caps by the main entrance, and an attempt to bring nature to the ballpark, with a rocky waterfall and trees beyond the centre field fence.

The iconic ‘Big A’ is a 70m tall metal structure that used to support the scoreboard inside the stadium. It was moved to the parking lot in the late 1970s. The ‘halo’ lights up whenever the Angels win a game.

To finish, here are a few notes about the other American League Stadiums.

Fenway Park in Boston is the oldest MLB stadium, and is best known for ‘the green monster’ – an 11m high wall in left field, though the satellite image doesn’t do it justice. (We can however see the grounds crew hard at work, and the field being setup for batting practice.) It also has a red seat marking the landing location of the longest home run, though I can’t find it on Google’s images.

In Kansas City, the Royals play in Kauffman Stadium which features a waterfall and acrobatic fountains which play between innings.

Google’s satellite images show players training on the field in Cleveland.

In Texas, Rangers Stadium is the only ballpark that I’ve noticed has its own heliport – just across the road to the west of the building. The exterior wall of the stadium is ringed with beautiful stone carvings, though they’re hard to make out on the first-generation low-res Street View images.

The Tampa Bay Rays play in a domed stadium which is actually in St Petersburg, Florida.

In Minneapolis, the Minnesota Twins play at Target Field, a new stadium not yet shown on the satellite images, though we can see it – and its dedicated transit station – mostly completed on Street View.

Finally, the Chicago White Sox play at US Cellular Field, which has a huge list of attractions – from luxury restaurants to misting rooms to cool off on hot summer days – though none of them are really visible from above.

Every stadium can be explored in more detail in the appropriate team’s section on the MLB site, and Wikipedia has good information as well.

Part two of this series will cover the National League, including a stadium with – would you believe – a swimming pool!

Locations: California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Ontario, Texas, Washington / Categories: Buildings, Monuments, Stadiums and Sport, Street Views, Structures

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The largest Masonic temple in the world is in Detroit, Michigan. The temple opened in 1926, just a few years before the Great Depression began. Now, the massive auditorium is primarily used as a concert venue called The Masonic.

Modern Freemasonry traces its roots back to the formation of the United Grand Lodge of England in 1717. The U.G.L.E. is headquartered at Freemasons Hall in Great Queen Street, just off Drury Lane, in London.

Across the street from Freemasons Hall, you can see several of the regalia shops that cater to London Masons. These shops sell Masonic books, aprons, keepsakes and trinkets as well as the formal attire required for certain meetings.

In addition to craft lodges (or “blue” lodges), which confer the three degrees of Masonry (Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft, and Master Mason), there are dozens of Appendant organisations for Masons to join. Two of the most well-known are the Scottish Rite and the Shriners. The U.S. has two governing bodies of the Scottish Rite, but the larger of the two is called the Southern Jurisdiction and its headquarters are in an impressive building in Washington, D.C., called The House of the Temple (Dan Brown fans might recognise it from The Lost Symbol).

Another fascinating (and massive) Scottish Rite Temple is in the unlikely location of Guthrie, Oklahoma. Part of the building once served as the Capitol of the state of Oklahoma.

Guthrie is a fairly small town in Oklahoma and you can see just how large the footprint of the Scottish Rite Temple is—it takes up several blocks of the town.

The Scottish Rite Auditorium in San Antonio, Texas, is one of the largest in the United States, and like Guthrie, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Outside the U.S. and England, there are many fascinating Masonic buildings—of course, not all of them on Google Street View. In Toronto, there is a large, ornate building labeled “Masonic Temple” but it’s no longer owned by Masons, in fact, it’s now the headquarters of MTV Canada.

Many of the former British colonies have long histories of Masons establishing lodges in the far reaches of the world. Here’s the Masonic Hall in Hong Kong:

These are just a few of the examples of the literally thousands of Masonic temples around the world. Do send in your favourites!

Locations: District of Columbia, England, Hong Kong, Michigan, Oklahoma, Ontario, Texas / Categories: Buildings, Street Views

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Officially named Bronner’s CHRISTmas Wonderland (including the emphasis on “Christ”), the statistics are mind-boggling:

• The building is 29,700 square metres
• Parking for over 1,000 cars
• More than 2 million visitors each year¹
• Annual sales of 50,000 different products, including more than half a million glass ornaments, 161 km of garlands, and 850 km of lights!²

After opening his first store in downtown Frankenmuth in 1954, Wally Bronner saw business grow to the point where – in the 1970s – he had to hire bouncers to control the crowds. A larger facility was constructed to the south of the city in 1977 and given the address 25 Christmas Lane.

Street View shows us that the huge grounds (or at least the parts that aren’t given over to parking) are stuffed full of seasonal decorations.

While Bing Bird’s Eye View captures Santa Claus red-handed, during one of his many seasonal housebreaking attempts.

There’s also an elaborate display of angels, who are depicted celebrating the birth of Christ (see closeup on Panoramio). While this may seem a little odd in the midst of such extreme commercialism, it does demonstrate Mr. Bronner’s original intent, which he claimed was to show his faith through the creation of a business dedicated to the celebration of Christmas.

This religious aspect of the business is also evident in the Silent Night Chapel on the edge of the property, which is a replica of the Silent Night Memorial Chapel in Oberndorf, Austria.

The Silent Night hymn has been transcribed onto multiple plaques here in over 300 languages, which are displayed on the walkway towards the Chapel, and inside the story of Christ’s birth has been translated into 30 languages.

Bronner’s CHRISTmas Wonderland on Wikipedia.

Locations: Michigan / Categories: Buildings, Monuments, Street Views, Theme Parks, Weirdness

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First we visit Denver, where a strange blue object visible from above is revealed by Street View to be a giant blue bear peering through the windows of the Colorado Convention Centre.

This 12m high steel and fibreglass sculpture titled I See What You Mean by artist Lawrence Argent was installed in 2005.  And in case you’re wondering, here’s what it looks like from the inside!

Another large bear adorns the exterior of a casino in Elko, NV to promote their star attraction.

The statue is a replica of White King – 3m tall and weighing 1000kg – claimed  to be the largest polar bear ever killed. The stuffed bear is on display in the casino’s coffeeshop.

And finally to Detroit, and bears of a different kind – teddy bears and stuffed toys of many kinds create the ‘unique’ decor of this house on Mt Elliott Street.

While you may wonder about the affect on local property values, it is actually part of a neighbourhood art project.

Thanks to lyrics_guru.

Locations: Colorado, Michigan, Nevada / Categories: Street Views, Structures, Weirdness

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Perhaps best known as the location of Elvis Presley’s early recordings, the studio was also used by many rock-n-roll greats including Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison and Jerry Lee Lewis. The building reopened in 1987 as a functioning studio and museum, appearing soon after that in the U2 film Rattle and Hum.

Speaking of U2, their first three albums were recorded at Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin. While the studio has moved, the location remains a site of pilgrimage for devoted fans who cover the walls with graffiti, visible on Live Maps:

One of the more unique studios in the world is the Astoria studio, found in a houseboat on the River Thames west of London.

Built in 1911, and originally designed to house an entire orchestra, the boat is currently owned by Dave Gilmour and parts of Pink Floyd’s two most recent albums were recorded there.

Most of Prince’s albums from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s were recorded at the now-defunct studio that shared a name with a song and record label: Paisley Park.

While we’ve already visited the Abbey Road zebra crossing on Google Sightseeing, we didn’t look at the actual studio:

Home to the vast majority of The Beatles’ recording sessions, these studios have since hosted a Who’s Who of modern rock, pop and classical music, from Radiohead to the Spice Girls. The wall outside Abbey Road Studios is also covered in graffiti from music fans, though it’s not visible on either Google or Live Maps.

From 1959 to 1971, Motown Records put more than 110 songs into the Top 10 – the majority of them were recorded at Hitsville USA, a pair of Detroit buildings that housed the label’s studios and administrative offices.

The label moved to Los Angeles in 1972, but the buildings have served as a popular museum since 1985.

And finally we fly to Berlin to see the Hansa Tonstudios.

Perhaps most famous for David Bowie’s Low and Heroes albums, many artists have taken residence there seeking inspiration from the culture and history of East and West Berlin.

Where was your favourite album recorded?

Thanks to Lianachan, Stephen Jackson, Martin S., 433 and Stephen LaMora.

Locations: England, Germany, Ireland, Michigan, Minnesota, Tennessee / Categories: Buildings, Movie Locations, Street Views, Watercraft

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After 28 years of service, mostly among Canada’s northern communities, the plane was retired in 1970 and lay idle for a while. Volunteer effort led to its restoration and it was mounted on a carefully designed pedestal in 1981. The plane is so well balanced that a wind of only 5 knots will cause it to turn. According to Wikipedia, the DC-3 is almost 20m long, 5m high and weighs over 8000kg.

I should mention that, from what I can tell, the plane has not been officially recognised, with the Guinness World Record currently being held by a weather vane atop the Tio Pepe facility in Jerez, Spain. However, as it’s somewhat smaller than a plane, and the Google images are not great, it’s hard to spot. Live Maps has a clearer view.

It’s difficult to find much information about the Tio Pepe weather vane – this site describes it as standing almost 40m tall (but judging from the pictures that height must includes the building it is atop) and weighing 2700kg.

In addition, there is a weather vane in Montague, MI staking a claim to be the largest, though again – at 14m tall and 8m long – it may be taller than a DC-3, but is not quite as big! The Google imagery of the town is very low resolution, but Live Maps has a pretty good bird’s eye view.

Locations: Michigan, Spain, Yukon / Categories: Aircraft, Structures

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Shoreham Nuclear Power Station

This is a plant that was never completed due to community opposition. In the aftermath of the Three Mile Island accident residents were increasingly worried about proximity to nuclear power stations. Shoreham was never finished because residents argued that if anything did go wrong, the population of Long Island couldn’t be evacuated with only one direction to go (west) and only one major road to take (the Long Island Expressway).

Thanks Chris & Thomas Paul

Sequoyah Nuclear Plant

I know you’ve already done a “Nuclear Power Megapost,” but I just ran across this, and think it’s cool that you can almost see directly down the cooling towers. BTW, it’s TVA’s Sequoyah Nuclear Plant.

Thanks Jay K

Chinon Nuclear Power Plant

This is the nuclear power plant of Chinon, a french town best known for its Cabernet Franc wine, with four very pretty cooling towers churning out steam.

Thanks Julien

Weldon Springs

The Nuclear Waste Adventure Trail and Museum at Weldon Spring, Missouri is where the government opened the Weldon Spring site to the public in 2002. The huge waste tomb spans 45 acres and is seven stories tall.

Thanks Bill

Bohunice Nuclear Power Plant

This is Bohunice nuclear power plant in Slovakia. A proper old-skool soviet era reactor. In February 22, 1977, the reactor suffered a major accident during refueling. Because of its age and old design the plant is currently undergoing a decommissioning process.

Thanks FeroG

Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant

This is the Iranian nuclear power plant under construction near the city of Bushehr. These two plants are one of the reasons that Iran and the west don’t get along. In 1995, Russia signed a contract to supply a light water reactor for the plant. Although the agreement calls for the spent fuel rods to be sent back to Russia for reprocessing, the US has expressed concern that Iran would reprocess the rods itself, in order to obtain plutonium for atomic bombs.

Thanks Paul, Bunsen, Pejvak DehDari & Bubba

Enrico Fermi Nuclear Power Plant

This reactor is named after the first physicist to create a nuclear reactor and is located between Detroit, Michigan and Toledo, Ohio. On October 5, 1966 a 94MWe prototype fast breeder reactor called Fermi-1 suffered a partial nuclear meltdown here. Thankfully no radiation was released off-site, and no one was injured.

Thanks David & Joe

I’m sure there are still plenty more interesting nuclear power sites so keep them coming!

Locations: France, Iran, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Slovakia, Tennessee / Categories: Shadows, Structures

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